71–80 of 174 posts
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> So then in a follow-up question, we can ask whether a publisher should be compensated for their work. And to me, it is pretty clear that they should be. But… what does a publisher actually do?
They are a filter. They have a reputation to uphold of publishing worth while stuff (hard to believe sometimes...)
As a native English speaker, I take “one-woman show” to mean it’s just her.
Probably she didn't say "show" in russian though. Some things are getting lost in translation here. She laments that The Chronicle doesn't credit her as doing actual work by describing what she does as a "show" instead. (implying that a male is doing the actual devops work behind the scenes)
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>and she took offense because the wasp was a parasite species, and blocked sci-hub in Russia for several months in retaliation Sounds like shes the wrong person in charge of sci-hub. Blocking access to ~free knowledge because one is offended is probably even worse...that's the mindset of dictators no? And Russia is probably her only protection not being assange'd already.
Feel free to run your own Sci-Hub, then. It's not like this is a massively collaborative project that she's the executive decision-maker of; it's largely just her.
>>Blocking access to ~free knowledge because one is offended
>it's largely just her
Yeah and that's the problem, with all dictatorships.
>It's not like this is a massively collaborative project
Who then uploads the content? Her alone?
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These papers that have been paid for by tax payers and peer reviewed for free should be made freely available legally.
I hear they generally are "freely" available, just email the authors and ask.
I didn't downvote you but the way contracts work, the researchers are not allowed to share the final published article that was professionally edited and typeset by the journal. What they can legally share are the preprints and manuscripts.[1]
Yes, some researchers may ignore the contract they signed (wink wink) and share the final published pdf. IME whenever I asked for a paper, I got the preprint -- which means the author honored their publishing contract. The preprint is fine in most cases because it will have the main idea of the research. However, it's often missing the pretty graphs and illustrations that the journal adds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>and she took offense because the wasp was a parasite species, and blocked sci-hub in Russia for several months in retaliation Sounds like shes the wrong person in charge of sci-hub. Blocking access to ~free knowledge because one is offended is probably even worse...that's the mindset of dictators no? And Russia is probably her only protection not being assange'd already.
She’s not a native English speaker, fine. That doesn’t seem like a disqualifier to me.
>Blocking access to ~free knowledge because one is offended is probably even worse...that's the mindset of dictators no?
What has that todo with language? Is Wikipedia blocking you (or your country) from access because you called an insect after Jimmy Wales?
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That's what happened a few years ago; the kerfuffle a few months ago was much more justified. And I don't really see how that's relevant here, anyway.
I was just trying to point out that if she considers this as trying to "malign her", then she will have to prepare for much worse attacks later for doing the right thing.
The first time you're thinking of, he was attacked over a misunderstanding when he wrote about a controversial topic, and people's general resentment of him bubbled over and made it a big thing. The second (more recent) one, he was attacked over unresigning, and because he pushed a lot of people away from Free Software.
Alexandra Elbakyan has, to my knowledge, not really pushed people away from open access science. She hasn't gone to conferences and made pejorative “jokes” about men, or deathists, or eaten her toe jam on stage. Why would people attack her?
So no new articles have been uploaded this year. While I have relatively good access options through my university, roughly half of the publications appearing in my Google Scholar alerts are unaccessible. As they are also in fields were use of preprint services isn't common, it really interferes with me being up to date with ongoing research. As the use of sci-hub is so common, I wonder about the wider implications o…
This is purportedly related to a lawsuit in India. The thought is that Alexandra is intentionally being as cooperative as possible because there is a possibility of a legal victory in that jurisdiction. The court had asked her to cease adding new material. She has shown us the way. We can always recreate sci-hub, should the current system cease to function. We even know what kind of budget it takes to set up and oper…
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These papers that have been paid for by tax payers and peer reviewed for free should be made freely available legally.
Authors are to blame, too. They can put their publications on arXiv. https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/sharing : “Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time. If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will h…
I don't remember the exact dates, but Nature (who had been hesitant for a long time) gave in as well. They resisted a long time as they were (and are) considered a badge of honor.
The original article presents her in a very bright light, as a smart and brave woman who is engaged in a legal battle against large greedy corporations. And I find the photo quite cool. I think she is just overly susceptible, and maybe a little bit paranoid (which is understandable for a person with enemies as powerful as hers). This reminds me of the time when a russian entomologist named a new wasp species he disco…
Yeah, she's doing God's work and sci-hub is amazing but Elbakyan is an odd person who gets extremely paranoid and defensive, holds weird beliefs and often does things that are over the top.
It pollutes everything in your life; you need to be suspicious of everyone and everything.
The other thing about a constant series of attacks -- without support to field them -- is that you DO misidentify things, and sometimes respond imperfectly. There are 24 hours in a day. Sometimes you'll miss something, and other times, you'll overreact, or just react inappropriately.
Talk to anyone with a stalker.
Now imagine that stalker has a billion dollar war chest, and can hire a PI to trail you on a whim, corrupt government officials, or wield more-or-less infinite resources compared to you.
In terms of weird beliefs, we all got 'em. The difference is mostly with regards to whether others find out about them.
I haven't been in the same position as Elbakyan, but I've been in a sufficiently analogous one that I don't see what she's doing as anything other than human.
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Sci-Hub is probably the best thing on the internet, but the fact that some rando had to create it doesn't speak well for the state of our world. If humanity weren't dysfunctional, academic institutions would have beaten Elbakyan to the punch back in the 1990s.
Sci-Hub is not especially legal so an actual institution isn't really able to create it instead.
Very often to progress, as a civilization, we need to change what is legal and what is not.